X Men: Ascension
by zealously
Summary: There are no X-Men in this alternate universe - only individual mutants struggling to come to terms with their own identities and their place in the world.
1. Chapter 1

My name is Scott.

But what I am is something else entirely.

No, I'm not some alien from the fringes of space or an animalistic creature – I'm human. Just like you, your family, or your friends. But I'm somehow less human than ordinary man. I'm special, a rare phenomenon. I am blessed and cursed – uplifted and damned at the same time. If that makes little sense to you right now, don't worry – I felt the same way when I found out. Confused, disoriented, lost in a brand new world I had no idea even existed.

The discovery of that new world had a precise date and time: Thursday afternoon, sophomore geometry at my local high school. It was the day my life went to hell.

Now of course I didn't know that at the time. If I had, maybe things would've gone differently. A lot differently. But as it was, I was trying to focus on the lesson on cosines and tangents Mr. Parker was droning on about. My friend Bobby was, as usual, slipping lewd notes to me, trying to get me to break a grin. We've known each other for years and have grown quite close despite our seemingly vast differences. He's a jokester type of guy – the classic class clown. I, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of that – stoic and unflinching. Or, as Bobby would say, stubborn and pigheaded.

As if Bobby's distractions weren't enough, I also had another major obstacle preventing me from focusing – the back of the head of the girl sitting directly in front of me. Her name was Jean, and she was the most beautiful woman in the world. For a high schooler, at any rate. Her very presence made you feel like you were standing in the shadow of a goddess. She had luscious red hair that seemed to float from the top of her head daintily to her shoulders. Her green eyes could captivate the heart of any man who dared to look at her. Sadly, I didn't get to see those eyes often – blame the seating arrangements, not my damned shyness!

Naturally, I was not the only one infatuated with Jean. With her looks and charming personality, it wasn't surprising that half the boys in my grade were attracted to her. Half of that half had made at least a move on her, and a select few had gone even further. Still, as far as I can remember, she hadn't had one single steady boyfriend. She certainly had a lot of friends who were boys, but never once had she continuously dated someone. This puzzled us guys, and many theories were drawn up as to why she was the way she was. She had impossibly high standards. She wasn't attracted to guys. She had a clandestine boyfriend, someone who was dazzling hot and of course mature past the realms of high school. Or she was secretly attracted to her one true love, Scott Summers. Kidding, of course.

I did not and could not ever belong to the same league as Jean. She was co-captain of the school varsity volleyball team, president of various clubs around campus, and most importantly, had her own car. Rumor also said that her family was rich. She had brains as well. Maybe not on an Einsteinium level, but she knew more than she let on.

So the closest I would ever get to Jean was her hair, located conveniently on the back of her head, which, I'm sure I've already mentioned, was alluringly displayed right in front of me.

A shake from Bobby brought me back to the real world. Mr. Parker had just finished saying something, and he was looking expectantly at me, awaiting an answer.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Even Bobby cringed at the confused tone of my reply, which made it obvious I hadn't been paying attention all along. Mr. Parker shook his head disappointedly. "Scott, I asked you for the tangent of 60 degrees."

I glanced down helplessly at my blank fill-in notes. "Um, you said 60 degrees, sir?"

Mr. Parker said nothing. It was evident that he wasn't going to help me out here. Neither was Bobby, who had retreated a corner of his desk, almost as if he was ashamed to be in the same classroom as such a slacker as me. Hypocrite.

As I sweated and fumbled through my textbook in pursuit of the correct chapter, a headache slowly grew. I've had bad headaches since I was a child – doctors eventually deduced that it was caused by stress. And at the moment I was certainly facing a stressful situation.

A sweet voice, the voice of angels broke my torment. It came from the desk directly in front of me. "It's the square root of three."

Mr. Parker nodded at Jean. "Perhaps Scott will now recognize the value in paying attention in class." Once he had turned away and resumed teaching the class, I breathed a sigh of relief. The pain in my head faded.

Suddenly – a flash of red hair as Jean whipped her head around, grabbed my notes, and whisked them to her desk. Her pencil flew. A few short moments later, she returned them, all the notes neatly filled in.

"Thanks," I said.

She flashed a smile. "No problem. Just wouldn't want you failing the end-of-class quiz."

My rational mind screamed, what! We have a quiz! My emotional side dissolved into bubbly goo, claiming heartfelt affection for the beautiful girl who had been so kind for me. For a couple of seconds, I felt happy, even elated. The calm before the storm.

The classroom door burst open. I flinched at the sound, and Bobby rose from his lethargic position, interested in this new development. Three men dressed in what looked like black military uniforms walked in, their gait confident, almost arrogant. Mr. Parker took offense to their untimely entrance, placing his hands on his hips and demanding in firm manner, "I hope you have what can only be an excellent reason for so rudely interrupting my class."

The men didn't seem intimidated by Mr. Parker's words. "US Special Services, Branch 6, sir," the man in the middle said, flashing an official-looking badge. "We're here to detain suspected accomplices of a major terrorist here on American soil."

My head began to throb.

Mr. Parker almost laughed before he realized the man was serious. "I'm sure you'll find none here in my class, nor anywhere else in the school," he assured them, "After all, they're only children."

"Sir, children are precisely what we're looking for," the man replied. "Now, I'm going to have to see the class roster."

"This is ridiculous," Mr. Parker muttered as he went off in search of the roster. The atmosphere in the class was tense – it was unnerving to see Mr. Parker in such a position of weakness. Not only that, but the pain in my head began to escalate.

From my vantage point I could see some of the students sneaking furtive glances at the men standing in the doorway. The sudden appearance of the men apparently provided them a welcome escape from the drudgery of school. But there was something odd with the way Jean was looking at the men. She was staring, hard, her gaze unwavering. She wasn't simply observing the men, she was focusing on them.

"Psst, Scott, what the hell's going on, man?" Bobby's normally carefree manner had given way to an air of concern and apprehensiveness.

I shrugged. "Damned if I know."

Back at the front of the room, Mr. Parker had finally dug up the class roster. He handed it to the man who had spoken earlier, "Now hurry up with your business so I can get back to teaching my students," he said, tapping his foot impatiently.

The men took a long gaze at the list. Then they took out a paper with images on it. Faces. Photo identification.

Some hushed, quick words between Mr. Parker and the men as they pointed out one of the images. I was too far from the front of room to accurately identify the picture they were pointing at, but I caught a glimpse of red. My head burned and I gripped my forehead. What was going on?

Mr. Parker looked up from the paper. "Jean Grey? I'm sorry, but you must have a made a mistake. She's not a terrorist – "

The man shoved Mr. Parker aside and pointed directly at me. No, not at me. The person in front of me. The person with the flowing red hair and beautiful eyes. "There. Get her."

Suddenly everything became a blur. The two men obeyed their superior's orders and ran up the aisle to Jean. They grabbed her roughly. She struggled. The class watched in subdued horror. Agonizing pulses shot through my head. I screamed. Fire consumed my eyes.

And then all I saw was red.


	2. Chapter 2

I must have lapsed into unconsciousness, for the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake. I opened my eyes and saw the face of an angel.

"Run, Scott," she cried, her face inexplicably torn between emotions of terror and tranquility. "Run away, as far as you can."

Why was she telling me to run? What had happened? I brushed her hands off of me and stood up, wavering a little as I regained my faculties. My first thought was what had happened to the classroom wall. My second thought was relief that the pain in my head was finally gone. My third thought was, oh my god, I did this. Somehow, without understanding completely, I realized that I was responsible for the destroyed classroom wall, the overturned desks, the people sprawled out on the ground. Everything in my field of vision had been devastated.

There was screaming. Pandemonium everywhere. The approaching sound of sirens. The two men who had so brusquely grabbed Jean struggled to their feet, fumbling with their cell phones, screaming to someone on the other end.

Bobby was racing to the front of the room, where Mr. Parker had been blasted through the giant crater in the wall along with the man in black. All of a sudden I noticed that everyone seemed to be looking at me. Gazes of shock at first. Then horror. Then accusing.

"What the hell? Did you see how his – "

"He's a freak, an alien – "

"Get him out of here!"

A hand jostled me. Then a hesitating kick. Then they began to advance on me, shouting, hitting whatever part of me they could reach.

"GET BACK!" A commanding voice pierced the air. Jean. Amazing that she was protecting me. Even more amazing that the students, my aggressors, listened to her.

Jean turned to me, her face locked in an expression of anguish. "Scott, GO!"

I didn't have to be told twice. I took one last look at the scene of panic I had so inadvertently caused, and fled. I ran from the classroom, ran through the hallways of the school where I could hear the sounds of doors being locked and whispered exchanges.

The school wide speaker blared, jolting me a little. "Dayton High School, we are in a Class-A lockdown. Lock you doors and keep your students away from the windows. I repeat, lock your doors – "

I burst out of the school front doors. No one tried to stop me. Not that anyone could have at the time – I was a pure running maniac fueled by sheer fear and adrenaline.

I continued running, with no sense of where I was going. I ran until my feet burned and begged for rest. I ran until my heart threatened to break itself against my ribcage. I ran until I could not run any longer, and then I ran some more.

Finally, I stopped. I had run all the way into the woods, it seemed. Collapsing onto the cool soft ground, my breathing came in short, choking gasps. Had I outrun my pursuers? Was I safe now? I didn't even know who or what I was running from, but the forcefulness of Jean's command had been all the persuasion I needed.

Utterly exhausted, I closed my eyes and let the sweet arms of sleep embrace me.

But even in sleep I was not spared the horrors of the living. My dreams were abruptly interrupted by a voice coursing through my mind. It wasn't a spoken voice – rather, it was more like the voice you hear when you think. Only ten times more pronounced.

_Mr. Scott Summers. You are quite the gifted young man._

What was this? What was going on? Was I still dreaming?

_I am not part of your dreams, Mr. Summers. I think you will find that I am as real as any person you might encounter. _

Who are you?

_The real question, my dear boy, is who are you? Or rather, what are you? You know, I had long suspected that Jean and I weren't alone in the world, but I didn't know the others would have abilities manifested in such…explosive ways._

What are you saying? What abilities?

_Calm your mind, Scott. You will get all your answers in due time. For the moment, I suggest that when you wake up, you heed my instructions. I will lead you to a safe place, a place where you belong. We will talk more then._

And just like that, he was gone. The voice had brought me comfort, for the rest of my dreams were pleasant. It was almost as if he had manipulated my mind, pushing the buttons that brought reassurance.

Upon waking, I found that it was late evening. The sun was already quickly fading into the horizon. I dusted the grass off my clothes and with a jolt, realized that my parents were probably expecting me. I prepared to find a path out of the forest, but recognized despairingly that I was hopelessly lost. When I had run here, I had paid no heed to my surroundings. I probably shouldn't have done that.

But all of a sudden, I knew where I had to go. I didn't have a clear picture of exactly where I was going in my head, but it was like I had been given a set of GPS-like directions. A map without a destination. I followed it, knowing that I had no better option at the time. I needed answers, and maybe this new route, this new path, had some.

So I picked up my weary legs and followed the compass in my brain. The path brought me deeper into the forest, and my worries about getting lost escalated. I had no idea if this "internal map" was actually real or not – for all I knew, I could be going insane. Trauma from getting your ass kicked by your fellow students after you completely wreck their school can do that, you know. Especially if the girl you've been crushing on turns out to be some super-dangerous terrorist wanted by the government. And especially if, after all you've gone through, you still feel relieved about not having to take that geometry quiz at the end of class.

Luckily, wherever my internal map was leading me wasn't very far from where I started from. The last vestiges of light had just about receded from the sky when I saw the dim glare of fire in the distance. Approaching further, I realized it was a campfire. A campfire in a picture-perfect scene reminiscent of old Boy Scout campouts, complete with tents and hiking backpacks. There were even logs surrounding the campfire, their surface so inviting to my wearied body as I sat down on them. It was then that I noticed the two other figures sitting on the log opposite me, on the other side of the fire. One was a bald, middle-aged man that seemed to be dressed too formally for the occasion. He had a wide forehead and eyes that seemed to hold wisdom far beyond his ages. The other figure had strikingly familiar red hair.

"Welcome, Scott," the man said, his eyes fixated on my face. He was studying me, looking me over, analyzing me. "My name is Charles Xavier." He motioned to the girl beside him. "You already know Jean."

I chanced a glance at Jean, to see what she thought of this whole bizarre affair. Her usually sunny face looked wearied, and she seemed unfocused. She was looking straight at me with those piercing green eyes, but I got the feeling that she wasn't really looking at me – it was almost as if she was looking through me, perceiving something deeper than my physical form.

"You'll have to forgive Jean," Xavier said. "I'm afraid words fail her right now - she's just tired from dealing with that little incident you had back at your school. You'll just have to believe me when I tell you that she's very, very happy to see you."

I shook off the emotional undertones that came with Xavier's words and instead focused on more pressing issues. "What do you mean, that little incident? What happened back there?"

Xavier shook his head and sighed. "Greater men than me have tried and failed to explain the phenomenon you just experienced, Scott. I'll try to put it as simply as I can and hope for your understanding.

"You are a mutant, Scott. Somewhere and somehow along the evolutionary chain of your ancestors, your genetic code underwent a mutation. That mutation is present in your DNA now. It's lain hidden for years, dormant, causing no visible effects at all. Until yesterday, Scott. The day when your mutation brazenly presented itself to the world. And apparently, as part of its commencement, it decided to blow a hole in your classroom's wall and scare the living daylights out of twenty seven high school students.

"All except Jean here. You see, we two are mutants too. My mutation grants me a telepathic power – for Jean, telekinesis. Reading minds and moving objects. When you blasted that hole in the wall, Jean instantly recognized what you were. Realizing that it wasn't safe for you there at the moment, she urged you to run. And so you did. A wise move on your part.

"You ran and ran, and Jean mentally called for my help. I can read minds from quite a distance away, and it was impossible to ignore her cry compounded by the screams of the students. So, I came, and together we fixed up the mess. Jean telekinetically reconstructed the wall and I altered the minds of the people present so that they wouldn't remember anything.

"So you see, Scott," he concluded with a hint of a smile, "the whole incident never really happened."

I couldn't say anything for a full minute. It took a while for everything to sink in, for me to digest Xavier's explanation. It was crazy. He was crazy. People with superhuman abilities, hidden from the rest of the world? And I was one of them? Yes, crazy.

But was Jean crazy? She had been real enough, a fixture of my ordinary life. And yet here she was, accompanying some eccentric man who claimed she had to power to move objects with her mind. The same man who claimed he could manipulate thoughts and feelings. And what about me? What was my power?

"Your power, Scott, is a simple one," answered Xavier, as if he had read my mind. "You can shoot red-tinted concussive blasts from your eyeballs that are strong enough to level whole mountains. Such raw power is rare in an individual, even among mutants."

I instinctively reached up and touched my eyelids, as if they were suddenly foreign to me. "If that's the case, if what you're saying is even true, then why aren't I shooting out red beams right now? After all, it's my mutation, right?"

Xavier's brow furrowed. "That, my boy, remains a mystery to me. As are so many great things in the world."

Great. Could I be great?

Xavier leaned forward, his calm demeanor giving way to heartfelt emotion. "Let me help you, Scott. You are not alone in your struggles. I can help you make sense of yourself, your place in this world. You'd be among your own kind."

I considered it. I really did. But who these people said I was was detached from who I knew I really was. I wasn't an aberration of genetic code – I was a perfectly normally functioning human. It's how I had lived my entire life. And now this man – this Xavier – was telling me that I was different. That I didn't fit in with the crowd of homo sapiens.

That I was an outsider.

I feared that if I veered too far from my life, I would lose it. I feared the change that would come and the change that had already happened. I feared the loss of my identity.

So I said no.

I can't tell you that Xavier was relieved. I can't tell you that he was disappointed. I'm not the mind reader in the group. But I know I was relieved. In walking away, I felt like I was returning from an elaborate detour I had taken in life – I had seen new sights, experienced unparalleled sensations. But, like all detours, I always had to return to the main road. The main road that was Scott Summers the high schooler with a crush on a pretty girl, the high schooler who fumed over cafeteria food and procrastinated on his homework.

The high schooler who wasn't a mutant.


	3. Chapter 3

"So, you still haven't told me what you were up to last night."

I sighed. "Do I really have to tell you again?"

"Please do." Bobby propped his chin upon on his knuckles. "I can't wait to hear the scintillating tale of how Scott Summers, the nerdy, rule-abiding, never-gotten-a-detention-before model student manages to call me at half past midnight, telling me he has to crash at my house."

"Like that time is so outrageous for you."

"That's not the point. So this Scott calls up his best friend in the whole world, who, did I mention, is dazzlingly handsome and has oh-so-cute eyes – "

"Would you please cut that out and get on with mocking me?"

"Right. So, this Scott tells me he needs a place to stay for the night. Because for some reason, what he's done is so horrendously bad that he can't go home to his parents. He tells me that he's been out all night doing god knows what. Drugs? I wouldn't rule it out. Someone so uptight, you know he's gotta get his fix once in a while.

So I say yes. Think it would be funny to see how badly he got himself messed up. But nooo. He shows up in a fancy smancy car. With Jean Grey."

"Actually," I pointed out. "It was Jean's car. So I wasn't actually with her, it was just…you know. Her car. Giving me a ride."

"Right, right, keep on feeding me your lies. Anyways, to humor this friend of mine, I say yes. I let him sleep in the guest bedroom. I call his parents and give some excuse about how he had a project with me and was really sorry about not informing them earlier.

He's zoned out the entire night. Doesn't even take one look at his homework. I don't think he even brought his backpack with him. This is the same guy that screws up test curves by scoring so high. And when he wakes up, he tells me that it's nothing, that he got a little lost walking home from school the previous afternoon and had to take a couple of detours."

I shrugged. "Happens to everyone."

"Dude, you live ten minutes away from the school. Walking."

"Ten minutes is a lot of time. Who knows what could happen."

Bobby slammed his fist onto the table, startling everyone in the library. "Scott, I demand you tell me what the hell you did last night."

I buried my face in my hands. "Okay. You want the truth?"

"I want the truth."

"You may have to sit down."

"I'm already sitting down, idiot."

"Then you may have to lie down."

There was no response from Bobby. Apparently I had reached his breaking point for humor. I wasn't even aware he had one.

"Okay. You got me. Drugs."

"What?"

"You heard me. I've been doing drugs."

"Which…which ones?"

"All of them."

Bobby leaned back in his chair, his expression irate. "Scott, if you're not going to tell me the truth, don't bother telling me anything." He gathered his books and prepared to leave. "You may know me better than any other person on Earth, but don't take me for an idiot."

I watched him go. I watched him go, knowing full well that I had hurt him, knowing full well that I could never tell him the truth. I could never tell anyone the truth.

The truth was too dangerous. And the life that I had chosen last night, the life that I had picked over the other one, was a peaceful one. A life of order and control. A normal life.

What did they say about knowledge? Ah, yes. Ignorance is bliss. The fool that knows nothing loves his life more than a scholar who knows everything.

"The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please, if you have to check out books or release a print job – "

It was time to go. My parents would be expecting me for dinner, and I don't think they would be too happy if I didn't show up for the second day in a row.

I picked up my bags and headed out the library doors, walking at a brisk pace. I had already finished all my homework for the day back at the library, so I wasn't in a hurry for that reason. In fact, I don't think I was hurried at all – I was simply eager. Eager for the comforts of a warm family and a warm house. Eager to assure myself that whatever happened last night was rooted squarely in the past.

It wasn't far from the library to my house, but I still took a long time walking there. It seemed to me that I suddenly appreciated small comforts more – things that I wouldn't have noticed before suddenly seemed more pronounced. Things like the air, and how fresh it smelled. The revitalizing sounds of traffic and horns and engines. I reveled in the rhythms of daily life.

When I finally got to my neighborhood, this leisurely trance was still occupying me. But it slowly began to dissipate, and I noticed a hint of oddness in the air. Some harshness to the gas I was filling my lungs with. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, it was quite weak and yet so pronounced in texture –

Smoke.

Coming from the direction of my house.

The house that had my parents, my sister, and my dog in it. The family I had yearned so much to be with. My family.

I ran.

Breathless, I finally came into view of my house. If you could still call it a house. The very foundations of it had been blown away, and the few portions still standing were slowly being consumed by fire. I had come home to a corpse.

Corpses. My family. I ran even faster, as if by some means I could still save this situation. I still had hope.

Hope that vanished wholly and utterly, blown away like a feather in a gust of wind, when I got close enough to see the throng of men gathered in front of what used to be my house. They all wore black suits, and they were all staring at the ruins in front of them with apathy. No, it wasn't apathy. Not quite. It was satisfaction.

They had done this. They had taken my life and ripped it apart. No, that wasn't an accurate analogy. They had taken my life and run it through a paper shredder. They had left me with nothing. They had mocked my normalcy, mocked my cowardice.

But how? Xavier – and here was re-opening the wounds – Xavier had told me that the minds of all those who had witnessed the incident had been altered. No one should have remembered anything, remembered that I was anything but an ordinary high schooler.

It had all been a trick. An elaborate game. The men in black. How convenient that they had arrived to take Jean in a class where I sat directly behind me. How convenient that the place where I had run to afterwards was located near Xavier's little camp.

And now my family was dead, just after I had begun to appreciate them.

But I still had my ace in the hole, my so-called mutant ability that Xavier had told me all about. He had confessed an ignorance of its source, but I knew that it came with strong emotion – stress, anger, sadness. It was like a manifestation of my raw, unbridled passion.

And so I screamed. I screamed for my family, I screamed for my pain, I screamed for my loss. The men in black looked back at me, momentarily startled, before being blasted into the ground. My vision filled with a fiery red, and I felt such immense power, such amazing force. I blasted everything I could direct my rage at and more.

"Scott! No! What are you doing?"

It was my sister's voice. She was pleading with me. I looked down to see her figure tugging frantically on my pants for less than a second. Then I drove her into the ground with my eyebeams, painting the grass a crimson red.

No! What had I done? How did I make it stop – it was out of control –

"Son, your behavior is inexcusable. I'm afraid we'll have to ground you for a month."

I looked up, and my parents suffered the same fate as my sister. Blown away in an instant by my own hands. My own eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry – " I choked out belatedly, gasping, horrified at the sudden way my power had turned against me. I fell to my knees, ramming my face against the ground, squeezing my eyes closed so tightly as if mere physical force could restrain my power.

It did. The sounds of destruction stopped, and all that pent-up fury, terror, sadness evaporated. I collapsed onto the ground, unconscious tears streaming from my eyes, seeing nothing but black. I couldn't open my eyes. I didn't want to open my eyes.

Heavy footsteps that sounded more mechanical than man approached. "Well done, Summers. Now, stand up. We have places to go."

They had taken everything and left me with nothing. An ordinary human would have cracked under such circumstances. Concluded that life was horrible and mean, and that there was no point in fighting anymore. No point in resisting.

But I wasn't ordinary. Even if I wanted to be.

I opened my eyes to see the men in black staring down at me. They were visibly unhurt, and their expressions as stoic as ever. Another one was there with them, too – a middle-aged man with coiffed black hair and unnaturally hard lines on his face. He was smiling, though not in a particularly friendly way.

I stood up shakily, though my resolve had strengthened. These men had sought to break me. I would show them that I wouldn't be broken. Couldn't be broken.

And so for the second time in my brief life as a mutant, I said no. And for the umpteenth time in the same brief period, I began to run. Not away from my persecutors, but towards my future. The future I had now so decisively chosen.


	4. Chapter 4

I had hardly made it five feet before I felt a rough hand grab me by the arm. My other arm was similarly ensnared, and I struggled, helpless, at the mercy of the men in black.

"You cannot outrun these magnificent Sentinels," the same man who had spoken before said. "As machines, they are designed to be eons stronger and faster than the ordinary human. And certainly stronger and faster than a mutant."

"What do you want with me?" I ceased struggling, seeing that it was useless. Instead, I willed my optic beams to activate. They remained dormant despite my repeated efforts.

"Only your cooperation." He motioned for the Sentinels who had so brusquely grabbed me to begin walking me towards the car parked in front of my smoldering house. "My name is Jason Wyngarde. I work for a great man, who is in great need of mutants like you and I."

This new piece of information was unexpected. "You're a mutant too?"

"I can create illusions that seem as real as the reality you know and experience every day. Quite a handy mutation, if you ask me. And certainly an asset to my employer."

My heart pounded, as I realized the ramifications of this reveal. "My sister."

"An illusion."

"My parents."

"Also illusions."

"So, if I didn't kill them," I choked out, "where are they now?"

"Now, that really is a mystery isn't it?" Wyngarde smiled a cruel smile. He motioned for the Sentinels to put me into the car.

"No," I gasped, even as my resumed struggling brought pain as the Sentinels tried to forcefully shove me into the backseat of the car. "No."

"No, Mr. Summers? You're not really in a position to refuse, you know."

"Actually," I said through gritted teeth. "You'll find that I am."

TSEWWWWW! I felt the terrible power course through my veins as I unleashed a blast that I had been building up for the past couple of minutes. The Sentinels flew backwards, propelled by the force. They slammed into Wyngarde, forcing him to the ground, causing him to collapse under their dead weight.

"Get him!" he cried, and the Sentinels obeyed his commands almost immediately, already scrambling to their feet. It seemed like my optic blasts could only stun them momentarily. These foes were of a true caliber, and I didn't think I could muster up the strength for another beam in the precious seconds I had before they worked their way back up to full functionality.

And so I propelled my feet in the opposite direction, willing my legs to distance myself as far away from them as possible. It was no longer a fight for my own identity. It was a fight for survival.

Heavy footsteps pounded behind me. To get out of this fix, I only had to outrun a couple of 6 foot tall mutant-hunting machines. Who, did I mention, were armed with guns?

BAM! BAM!

I tried to dodge them as best as I could. And by that I meant running faster.

I knew I couldn't hope to outrun them the conventional way. Based on the sound of their footsteps, I estimated that they would catch up to me in a matter of seconds. However, I had a home advantage. This was my neighborhood, and as advanced as these Sentinels seemed to be, they hadn't lived on the battlefield, so to speak, for the past decade and a half. I only had to find some way to use my intricate knowledge of the nooks and crannies of my community to my benefit. Knowledge was nothing without action, and without action I would be a dead man.

"Let's see how high you bastards can jump," I muttered to myself as I spotted a yard with an especially high fence in front of me. Quickening my pace to gather momentum, I leaped onto the side of the fence, planting my leg squarely on one side while swinging my other leg over. In one fluid motion I catapulted myself over the top of the fence, landing hard on my feet. Seeing a gate in the corner of the yard, I jumped back up and sprinted towards it, hoping that my little gymnastic feat back there had bought me some time.

A loud crack followed by the subsequent sound of bits of planks falling onto the grass. The Sentinels hadn't even bothered with jumping at all.

But I was already out of the gate, already running down an old passageway hidden from the light of day behind vines and tree branches. These Sentinels were machines, so I doubted that they could smell – all I had to do was keep out of their vision and stay quiet.

Behind me, I heard my hunters stop abruptly. I was out of their sight - half the job was done. Now I could only hope they didn't choose to go down the path I had chosen, else they would encounter a very visible person entwined among the vines.

I held my breath, not daring to make even the slightest noise. I didn't even dare to sneak a look at the Sentinels, knowing full well that if I met their steely eyes with my own, my cover would be blown.

Breathless anticipation. Then soft thudding as the machines resumed their pursuit of me. In the wrong direction.

Even after that, I didn't move for a couple of minutes. Perhaps they hadn't really moved at all - perhaps they sought to bait me out. And these were machines after all - machines capable of playing a simple audio file that sounded like footsteps pounding away. I couldn't take any chances - what were a couple more minutes of discomfort versus my whole life? And so I waited, horribly aware of how loud my heart beat in my chest and how conspicuous every breath I took was.

When I finally felt that I had waited long enough and that not even machines could have that much patience, I disengaged myself from my makeshift camouflage. I took in big gulps of cool air, welcoming the joy of simply being alive. I looked out at the clearing and, seeing no tall men clothed in black, decided to chance a dash out into the main road.

Once out in the open, I quickly scanned the streets and the surrounding houses for any danger. Nothing. I refused to believe that I had gotten away from the Sentinels that easily. These were the creatures that had now taken a total of three of my optic blasts and escaped relatively unscathed. Still, maybe they were only physical force and no match for the wits of a human.

Even as I was debating the logistics of my escape, I made the prudent move to get out of the open, now that I had ensured as best as I could that the coast was clear. I quickly walked up to the front porch of the closest house, trying to act as non-suspicious as I could. It was difficult. Sweat was still pouring down my face, and I was breathing hard. There was also an air of anxiety and paranoia around me - if anyone saw me right now, they'd conclude that I had been running from the cops. Which wasn't too much a stretch of the truth, I suppose.

Still, it was too dangerous out here. As long as the Sentinels existed, my life would be under constant threat. So I needed to go somewhere. I needed to call somewhere.

But who? My parents. The sudden horror of the past hour washed over me. I couldn't contact my parents. Even if they weren't dead, they were obviously under the control of Wyngarde and his Sentinels. Calling them posed too much of a risk, and on the slim chance that they actually answered, what was I supposed to say to them? Ask them their location and perform a daring rescue? No - there was a time for bravado and a time for caution. So they were out.

Bobby. The only other sane person in my bizarre little world. My oldest friend. He'd be able to help me. The Sentinels didn't know about my connection to him - his house could serve as a temporary refuge. Still, dragging him into my mess would put his whole life at risk. Could I take that kind of moral weight on my conscience? No, I couldn't. So there was really only one option left.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Jean's number.


	5. Chapter 5

"Hello?" The voice that answered was wavering and hesitant, though most decidedly Jean's. Her voice brought a cool warmth of relief to my body.

"Jean, it's Scott. I'm…I'm in trouble." A sudden terrible fear gripped me. "They…they didn't get you too, did they?"

"Oh, hey Scott!" Jean replied in a tone that was so uncharacteristically friendly and so unbefitting the current circumstances that I almost believed I was in sophomore geometry again. Almost. "Listen, sorry I didn't come to school today. I was just totally zonked out from that all-nighter I pulled the day before."

Madness that she would be conversational in such a maddening situation. Still, if she wanted to play games, I was more than happy to oblige. "It's alright. You didn't miss much."

"But of course, you took notes for me and collected all my homework," said Jean alluringly, her inflection suddenly becoming irresistible. "And you're about to so kindly come over to bring them to me."

"R-Right," I stammered. "At the usual place?"

"Of course. Where we last saw each other. You do remember, don't you?"

The forest. The little fireplace in the clearing. I remembered it as clearly as the vibrant sunshine beating down on me. But of course I didn't recall how exactly to get there – I had been in a temporary state of insanity during my first forage into the forest.

"Of course I do, but humor me and tell me the directions anyways."

"Oh Scott," giggled Jean. "You make me laugh. See you there!"

Click. She had hung up. I was once again alone.

_Not as alone as you might think, dear Scott._ Xavier! He was truly gifted if he could implant himself into my mind at such great a distance.

_Yes, yes, I know my powers are exceptional. Now, Scott – _

Hold up. After all I had been through, I deserved some kind of explanation. Why hadn't he warned me about the Sentinels? Why hadn't he warned me that they would come after me, burning down my house and doing unknown dreadful things to my family? Didn't he say that he had cleaned up the situation back at the school, removing everyone's memories of the event?

_You will get all your answers in due time. I promise you that. At the moment, however, you are still in danger. You will have to move quickly to evade your new aggressors. Now, listen carefully…_

He proceeded to elucidate clear directions. Take a bus here, a hiking trail there. I understood the need for such a roundabout route – according to Xavier, despite my short-term success, I had not eluded the Sentinels yet. This meandering trek was meant to finally shake them once and for all, which was vital to maintaining the secrecy of Xavier's little hideout.

So I obliged, and for the next hour I wandered the city in a dizzying path that would apparently lead me to Xavier and, most importantly, understanding. I renounced my old life, its luster paling in comparison to this new life I had suddenly and so violently been dragged into.

The Sentinels had changed things. For the better or worse, I still didn't know; however, they had certainly forced my hand in choosing between two extremes - mutant and captured, or mutant and free. Any possibility of retaining my normal life had vanished as my home vanished, my family vanished. I didn't know if I could accept this new path. But I knew it was the path I had to live with.

Eventually I found myself experiencing an odd case of deja vu as I found myself in almost the same circumstances that I had found myself in that fateful evening. The sky was just beginning to darken as I gazed out across a familiar wide expanse of forest, the same mental map ingrained in my memory. It was here that my journey began. It was here where I would continue it.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the forest, knowing that once I stepped forward there would be no turning back.

In the madness of the previous night Xavier's camp had seemed to be merely minutes away - as I progressed deeper into the forest, it became apparent that it was actually quite a ways away from civilization - Xavier had certainly taken great pains to make sure no unassuming humans would stumble upon his hideout. And yet I had, in my panic, had stumbled into this very forest. By this time I had dismissed the notion that Xavier was a conspirator, that he had artificially orchestrated the events of the past couple of days for some unknown purpose. No, Xavier wasn't the enemy here. But he had some things to answer for.

Two leg aches and a sore foot later, I arrived at my destination. My mental map indicated that my journey ended here, though looking out at a particularly uninteresting stretch of trees and bushes, I failed to see any evidence that my trek was actually at an end. There was no campfire, no tents, no familiar figures to be seen. And yet this was where Xavier had led me. Where his camp _had_ been. It was only a question of what had happened to it.

_Have faith, Scott. See beyond your five senses._

All of a sudden, the landscape I saw in front of me began to change. It shimmered, as if it was coming into focus for the first time. The forms of what I recognized as Xavier's camp, along with the man himself, appeared in front of me.

"I apologize for the facade, but you will understand its necessity, given the danger we are in at the present moment."

Danger? I had come here to seek relief from danger. I opened my mouth to tell Xavier the extraordinary events that had transpired.

"Don't bother, child. I took the liberty of scanning your mind while you were making your way back here. I apologize for the intrusion, but time is of the essence."

It was then that I noticed something - or someone - was missing from the scene. "Where's Jean?"

For the first time since I had met him, Xavier looked troubled. "She contacted me mentally when she received your phone call. I tracked her and your progress, and somewhere along the way I lost her. It was like her mind just suddenly ceased to exist."

A cold sweat chilled my body. "You don't think she's - "

"No need to jump to conclusions, Scott. Perhaps she simply moved out of my telepathic range. Or perhaps she - "

He would never finish his sentence. A bloody face, panting, followed by a staggering body stumbled out of the woods into the clearing. Her red hair was strewn about her head, and her eyes were wide with terror. She opened her mouth, but, the effort failing her, collapsed onto the ground. Xavier took one look at her splayed body and rushed to her side. Me? I was too numb to move.

Much less react when the Sentinels showed up.

Guns drawn, feet pounding, the Sentinels were as menacing as ever, save for one Sentinel who was struggling to keep up with the others with its blown-off foot. It seemed like Jean had not gone down without a fight.

Two of the men grabbed Jean and hoisted her up quite roughly. Her strength was so far gone that she didn't even struggle. Another Sentinel pointed his gun at Xavier. "Charles Xavier, you are under arrest for harboring illegal individuals, conspiracy, and for your crimes against humanity." Xavier shakily got to his feet, his focus diverted away from Jean to the Sentinels. He stared at them unflinchingly, and I almost see the veins on his head throbbing. The Sentinels remained unfazed.

The man pointing the gun at Xavier nodded to the others. "Grab them."

A Sentinel plodded his way towards me. Of course. I was a part of Xavier's so-called "conspiracy" as well and deserved whatever horrible fate lay in store for me.

That was, if we were captured. If we didn't fight back, seeing as how Xavier's powers were rendered useless against these opponents. If I was the same scared teenager I had been only a couple of hours ago. If I hadn't, at long last, found something worth fighting for.

I focused, drawing upon that awesome power, and fired. Red enveloped my vision, and when it cleared, the Sentinels who had stood in my path ceased to remain standing, including the red-haired girl they had been holding captive.

"Now!" screamed Xavier, and Jean leaped to her feet, seemingly revitalized. The downed Sentinels were just about to start struggling to their feet when Jean slammed then back into the ground with a telekinetic blast.

"Now, my friends." Xavier said, "we dance." He approached one of the struggling Sentinels, looking down with cold contempt. The Sentinel at his feet grasped Xavier's shirt, as if to hoist himself up. A bad move on his part. Xavier, his face betraying a rage so intense I hardly believed it was really him, delivered a vicious kick to the Sentinel's head.

"You - you would come into my home, invade my privacy - " Another kick to the Sentinel's chest, forcing him to the ground. " - endanger my children - " He placed the ball of his foot on the Sentinel's neck. "Despicable."

"Charles." Jean's tone was pleading. "We... we can't kill..."

"These are machines, my dear," said Xavier coolly, his eyes hard. "They don't feel."

A cracking sound, and one Sentinel was separated from his head. Xavier moved to the next one, pinning him to the ground, placing his face inches from the Sentinel's steely visage. "Tell me who sent you."

"You will never win," the Sentinel hissed. "You have no idea how vast our resources are - we will hunt you to the end of the Earth if the master demands so."

Xavier forcefully dragged the Sentinel to his feet, almost to the point of ripping his black suit. "A NAME! GIVE ME A NAME!" He shook the Sentinel violently, causing his dark shades to fall off. For the first time I saw his eyes - if they could be called eyes at all. They were inhuman, mechanical, and devoid of all emotion and soul. Xavier seemed stunned as well, and released his victim, backing away slowly. "Jean. Scott." His voice, in its controlled softness, unnerved me. _Take cover!_

I dove behind one of the tents - fat lot of good that would do for me - and awaited the inevitable.

I heard a quiet fizzing, like circuits shorting themselves out, then heard - no, felt - the harsh scorching of fire. I peeked out behind my cover and confirmed my hunch - the Sentinels, their offensive defeated, had decided that life was just not worth living anymore, that they preferred death, if such a term could be applied to a machine, to capture. And so they had self-destructed - not explosively or devastatingly but quietly and simply, almost matter-of-factly. Like they did this everyday.

And now all the pieces were on fire, as if to erase their existence even more.

"Jean," said Xavier, "get the fire extinguisher." He looked down at the pieces of the men he had so violently engaged, using his foot to smother some of the fires. Then he noticed an undamaged Sentinel - the one he had decapitated so viciously. Apparently the self-destruct mechanism didn't work if it was already, so to speak, destructed. Xavier strode over to this one intact Sentinel, picking up its head as I hurried to help Jean with the fire extinguishers.

"I can't read its mind," said Xavier softly. "So I'll have to extract information the manual way."

"Xavier," Jean said. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Now?" replied Xavier, taking his eyes off of the mechanical head he held in his hands and gazing out at the dense forest that surrounded us. "Now... we get ready."


	6. Chapter 6

I prepared to spend the night in one of Xavier's spare tents. This was my home now - if anything, the Sentinel attack on the camp revealed even more firmly that I could not return to my old life. I would be hunted so long as I lived - my crime was merely _existing_. Xavier explained it all to me after we had subdued the fire and cleaned up what remained of the Sentinels. Sheltered against the cold in a tent, faces lit up dramatically by candlelight, he told me his story. Throughout human history mutants had always existed - a three-legged freak here, a two-headed abomination there. However, sometime long ago - twenty years, to be exact, mutants suddenly become much more prevalent - and the mutations themselves much more volatile and pronounced. Humans tried to form an alliance with this new subset of humanity, and compromises were drawn up, treaties signed. It was during this period that Xavier and his associates actively campaigned for mutant rights and recognition. However, anti-mutant tensions still raged, and when a mutant literally destroyed a small city in retaliation for the slayings of his kin, the human government decided that enough was enough. They outlawed mutants, declaring it illegal to be born differently. Those who were able to mask their mutations were able to blend themselves in among the humans. Those who couldn't weren't so lucky.

Xavier himself, despite the subtleness of his mutation, was cursed by his own infamy with the human government - branded as a dangerous mutant, he was forced to go into hiding away from civilization.

"All I wanted was a peaceful coexistence between men and mutants," he told me. "And for that they branded me an enemy of humanity."

So he hid - never staying in the same place for more than a year, lest the government-sponsored mutant hunters discover him and finish their job. And these mutant hunters were effective - lethally effective. Over the years Xavier's mutant contacts grew fewer and fewer. It seemed that the sudden wave of mutation that had produced Xavier and his fellow mutantkind had, essentially, burned itself out. Fewer mutants meant fewer offspring which meant fewer chances to pass on the mutated gene.

But then he met Jean. Born to remarkably un-mutant parents, she was a product of the same phenomenon that had produced the first wave of mutants. Proof that mutantkind had not been completely driven to extinction. Hope for a better future.

"Do you understand now, Scott?" he asked. "Do you understand what you and Jean mean to me?"

Of course I understood. And with that understanding came a fuller, more horrible understanding of the true implications of the Sentinels.

"They've discovered us," I said. "And they won't stop until we suffer the same fate as our predecessors."

"But this is where it changes, Scott." Xavier radiated with passion, his tone not optimistic but not entirely pessimistic either. "This new mutant strain... there must be hundreds more of us out there. Maybe even thousands. A small drop in the ocean of humanity, but a drop nevertheless."

"Do you mean to fight them?" I was appalled at the idea of retaliation - of killing humans, humans I knew and had lived amongst, in return for the killings of people I didn't and would never know, yet irrevocably tied to me.

"If a war comes, the winner inevitably crushes the loser, stamps him out of existence. This is the way nature is. This is the way history is. But it doesn't have to be this way." Something shimmered in Xavier's eyes, as if an old ardor had begun to rekindle itself. "We don't have to be animalistic beasts clamoring for the resources of the world. If we work together, if we cooperate, we can create a better world. Human and mutant, side by side. That is the ideal, Scott. That is the dream."

Xavier stood up and strode to the flaps of the tent. Before leaving, he paused.

"Try and get a good night's sleep, Scott. Tomorrow will be a new beginning."

A loud alarm, its sound harsh and dissonant, shook me out of my dreams. I rolled over, brushing against nylon sheets.

"It's too early," I complained, using my hand as a shield against the sunlight.

"Never too early for fugitives of the human race," a voice brightly responded. "Now get up, Scott, before I increase the volume of that tinging in your brain tenfold."

I refused to budge. "It's a weekend. You're supposed to be sleeping in."

A pillow smacked me across my face. "Don't make me beat you awake."

"Alright, alright, I - " I threw my covers off, opening my eyes to an eerily empty tent. There was no one here. I walked outside unsteadily, aware of the silence that pervaded the area. "Jean?"

"Here," came the reply, and I turned to see her calmly sipping away at a mug, seated on a log in front of a now dormant fire. "Do you always require that much persuasion before you wake up?"

I rubbed my eyes. "How did you do that? Were you out here all the time?"

She tapped her head. "Xavier's been teaching me some telepathy."

I walked over and took a seat next to her, pouring myself a glass of water from a pitcher located among an array of breakfast foods and beverages set out on a picnic blanket. "I didn't know powers were something that you could _teach_."

Jean took a bite out of a muffin. "I've always had the potential inside me. Xavier's just helping me develop it."

I looked around. "Where is Xavier, by the way? Don't tell me he's still asleep."

Jean's look told me she didn't appreciate my attack, sarcastic or not, on her mentor. "He's been working all night. He just left, bringing that damned robot head with him, to meet an old colleague."

I raised my eyebrow. "An old colleague. Isn't that dangerous?"

"No, not any more dangerous than the possibility that we might get attacked while Xavier's safeholds guarding the camp are gone."

I stared.

"Hence, why I couldn't afford yelling at you out loud. Our enemies might be alerted to our presence. Want some coffee?"

I took it. "So, is this how you always live, with this giant, ignored schism between everyday life and _our imminent death that could happen at any moment_?"

Jean looked scorned. "You know I'm more than capable of handling myself in any fight."

"Right. Like you handled those Sentinels last night, before you came running to Xavier?" The look on Jean's face made me regret my words immediately. The social feel of our conversation suddenly turned to ice.

"You have no idea," she said, turning away from me. "I didn't run because I had to. I ran because I chose to. I ran because I didn't want to fight."

"But they were trying to kill you."

"They _weren't_ trying to kill me, that's the point. And they weren't trying to kill you, either, when they caught up with you at your house. Xavier talks about peace and cooperation, but he uses violent means to achieve those goals. It's just...hypocritical."

"Last evening the Sentinels were _definitely_ trying to kill us."

"And I'm glad they self-destructed when they did. Given the chance, Xavier would have interrogated and killed every one of them."

"He wouldn't be without justification."

"You're talking about the so-called mutant genocide that occurred before our time. Yes, it was a great injustice, but evil cannot be repaid in evil. If we do that, then how are we any better than our enemies?"

Jean set her food down and sighed. "I should've left you sleeping. A philosophical debate, especially one with a person as stubborn as you, was not how I planned to start my day."

A glum silence followed as we finished our breakfast.

At last, Jean stood up. "Come on. I'll show you around the place."

I looked around incredulously. "You mean there's more to this than a couple of tents?"

Jean smiled knowingly. "Xavier sure didn't pick this location for the scenery."

She led me quite a ways south of the camp. We were surrounded by trees again, and the terrain looked as uninteresting as ever. Jean pulled out a futuristic-looking remote control and punched some of its buttons. It beeped audibly, and Jean backed up a little, pulling me with her.

The ground began to shift beneath us, like a mini-earthquake, producing a low rumble. The layers of grass in front of us retreated horizontally into the earth, revealing that a mechanized structure had been built into this plot of land. Slowly, a flight of stone steps was revealed, leading down into what I could only imagine as some giant underground complex. If I said I was in awe, it would be an understatement.

"You're saying Xavier built this? All by himself?"

"He didn't spend his years in isolation twiddling his thumbs, Scott. Besides, this was already here - a mutant safehouse built long ago by mutants who believed that they would eventually need protection from humanity. Xavier detested them, of course - his ideal of a peaceful world conflicted with what he dubbed as war fortresses."

"Still," I said, following Jean down the cold stone steps. "This is impressive."

"Just wait til you see what's inside," she replied, unlocking the door that framed the entrance to the complex. "You should have seen this coming. A great brain like Xavier would never have been satisfied with the meager accommodations you saw outside."

The door swung open, and I followed Jean inside.

* * *

><p>It was smaller than I expected. According to Jean, it was unfinished - apparently, with the humans after their hide, the mutants didn't have much time to fully expand these underground shelters. There weren't any living quarters, which explained why Xavier felt the need to sleep outside. The kitchen and leisure areas were positively miniature. And I didn't even recognize the bathroom when I first saw it.<p>

But it was enough. Enough to sustain its inhabitants while they went on with their more important work – and such amazing work it was. There was an armory, sadly devoid of any weapons, and a vast computer room filled to the brim with apparatuses that would have amazed any engineer. There was a lab – storage rooms – even a primitive greenhouse. Even in the wake of mutant extinction, they still needed their flowers.

"This is where I spent most of my days after school," said Jean, after she had finished giving me a brief tour. "Xavier took me in as his student – he really is a great mind – and with his teachings, you can see why high school stopped being a challenge for me."

I began to see Jean in a whole new light. I always knew there was something more to her than what she allowed others to see.

"So…is this the reason you never took on a boyfriend? Because you'd have to kill him if he ever found out?"

Jean laughed. "I'm not Xavier, Scott. Though that was partly the reason, yes. I couldn't afford to be that close to someone while harboring such a dangerous secret. And I found it hard to identify with a normal boy, someone who didn't and could never share my burden." She gazed at me curiously.

I palpably felt the temperature rise a couple of degrees. Must have been some problem with the internal heater or something.

Jean snapped her fingers. "Wait! I forgot to show you the centerpiece of this facility – the thing that Xavier's been working on for the past year. Here – " She pushed past me, walking excitedly down an unexplored hallway. I struggled to keep up with her, wondering what new marvel could be so imperative as to merit being hailed as a "centerpiece".

We finally stopped at a locked steel door with a keypad at its side. Jean quickly punched in some numbers, and the door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a large, domed metal room. I hesitantly stepped inside, instantly realizing how massive this one room was in comparison to the others. Here was a place where I felt like I could run and actually not feel constrained or boxed in. And yet it was completely empty.

"This was the gym," Jean said, closing the door behind her as she approached one of the bare walls.

"Was?"

"You'll see," she said, smiling mischievously as she flipped open a panel on the wall, pressing a series of buttons. The room came to life – turrets descended from the ceiling, cannons poked their heads out of crevices in the walls, and storage cabinets slid out, holding equipment of every variety. "Xavier took this unfinished area of the bunker and fashioned a training space. He envisioned a place where mutants could hone their skills under his guidance. I was his first student, a lab rat in a way, and this was where he taught me to control and guide my telekinesis. We would practice here for a couple of hours every day."

I eyed the guns nervously. "Does training usually involve death?"

"Oh Scott," Jean laughed, "those are harmless." She pushed another button, and a rapid barrage of balls came flying out of a cannon. Jean focused for a minute, and the balls froze in midair, then dropped to the ground smoothly.

"And I thought my eyebeams were impressive," I remarked.

Jean smiled reassuringly. "You have the power, Scott. The control comes with time." She retracted the contraptions and moved towards the exit. "Now, let's go. Xavier is waiting."


	7. Chapter 7

"I've got a location."

We leaned forward, hungry for information.

"Only a location. But that's enough. Now that we know where they're holed up, we don't have to lounge around, waiting for them to attack us. We can take the fight to them."

"With all due respect, Xavier," Jean interrupted, "I don't think we're ready."

"No. We're not. Which is why I'm giving us a week. One week to plan, one week to strategize, one week to train."

Jean nodded. "Anything else?"

"Yes. The Sentinels are resistant to mental attacks. When I wiped all their memories of Scott Summers and Jean Grey back at the school, all they had to do was salvage the lost information and reinsert it into their data storage. That was how they found you two the day after."

"Does this mean your abilities are useless against them?" Jean asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. I would be useless in any assault against the Sentinel base, which is why I'm sitting out on that mission."

My heart caught in my chest. "We'll be alone?"

"I'll be maintaining mental contact with you the whole time," Xavier assured us. "And you'll hardly be alone, not when you have each other.

One more thing. This Wyngarde character you told me about – his power to generate illusions. Do not be fooled by those – remember your senses, and never let emotion trump logic. I will do my best to counter him in the mental plane, but the weight of battle falls upon you two.

That will be all, Jean. Scott, come with me. We have to do something about that little problem of yours…"

* * *

><p>I tried. I really did. I scrunched up my face, screamed mental commands, and thought of the most horrible, wrathful things I could possibly imagine.<p>

Nothing.

"These walls are blastproof," Xavier remarked, tapping the side of the underground training room. "Let it out, Scott. You can't hurt anyone in here."

I shook my head in frustration. "I don't know. It's just not happening. I don't know why – it always happened before when I was stressed or angry or scared."

"But of course you are none of those things now," Xavier noted. "And it would be impractical to call upon such emotions while in the heat of battle – it's too unreliable a trigger." He pulled out a large black pad and walked over to the opposite wall, securing the pad firmly on it. "Let's try just focusing, Scott," he said. "I want you to become your power, to lose all sense of the outside world, and to _hit this pad_ with all that you've got."

"Oh, and don't mind me, Scott," he added, noticing his proximity to the target. "I want to be close to the action."

So I tried again. I stared at the black dot on the wall until my eyes began to water. I visualized myself hitting it, visualized my vision filling with that all-too-familiar red. Focus focus focus. The universe did not exist save for that one circle in the distance.

Blinding red light erupted from my eyes, almost filling the entire room. I hit the black pad, the entire wall behind it, and much more. Startled, I blinked, drawing myself out of that intense concentration. The beams stopped, and I looked on at the once again spotless grey room. I felt empowered, more so than when I had first discovered my power. Jean had been right. Control was a wonderful feeling.

A scuffle of feet and arms against metal. "That was brilliant, Scott," came Xavier's winded voice as I turned to see him trying to get up from being thrown across the room. "I asked for a demonstration of power and you did it. Now let's see if we can't perform a little fine-tuning."

* * *

><p>"Geometry. I hate geometry."<p>

"Only because you were never taught to love it."

"So what, you say I can't go back to school, but make me do schoolwork anyways?"

"Education nurtures the mind, Scott. Without it we're no different than beasts."

I took the heavy textbook with apprehension. "You're sure I can handle this?"

"If you ever need assistance, I'm sure Jean will be more than happy to help you," Xavier replied with a gleam in his eye.

"Calm your mind."

Easier said than done. Who knows, it might even be impossible. There was no filtering out the million and one thoughts that flew through a pubescent boy's head every second.

"Deep breaths."

I inhaled slowly, savoring the rich texture of processed air. The pounding in my ears deadened.

"Now open your eyes, and fire."

I summoned the terrible strength, filling my mind space with vibrant red. I became one with red. I was red. I was power.

I didn't open my eyes; I opened my weapons.

* * *

><p>"What was it like, Scott?" a sweet voice asked.<p>

"Hm?"

"Your old life. Before you were reborn as one of us."

"Oh – well, it wasn't terrible…I mean – "

"Do you miss it?"

"…yes."

"We can never go back, you know. Even if we can finally come out of hiding – they'll never accept us."

"Humans change."

"But human nature doesn't…"

* * *

><p>I led my pencil across an elaborate maze of diagrams. "So, if the initial velocity starts off at this point, then the end result will most definitely redirect to this point."<p>

He looked over my work, slowly nodding. "You impress me, boy. Law of sines, special right triangles, an uncanny grasp of the unit circle."

I brightened at the praise, eager to please my hard-to-please instructor.

"But we've hardly breached the tip of the iceberg. What do you know about three dimensional space geometry?"

My hand faltered.

* * *

><p>A timer. Thirty seconds. On. Thirty seconds. Off. Thirty seconds. On.<p>

I could never endure too long. Inevitably I would collapse from the strain. Inevitably I would have to literally crawl out of the training arena, so utterly exhausted that even summoning up the energy to breath brought pain.

Inevitably I would endure longer and longer every day.

* * *

><p>"Sit with me."<p>

I sat with her, and together we watched the sun descend the horizon.

"I don't want to go to war, Scott."

"We're a three-man band," I said, trying to lighten up the subject. "I think there's a minimum army size for war or something."

"But what if Xavier said was true? What if there are more of us out there…and more of…_him_…out there, people who want vengeance, who want justice, no matter the cost?"

"I say to hell with them. It can just be us against the world, if that's the way you want it."

"Not against, Scott. Fighting _for_ our place in the world."

"Don't you think that's a little precarious, fighting for people who want to kill you?"

"We have to show them we don't need to and shouldn't be killed. Only then can the greater battle be won."

* * *

><p>"Visualize the plane, Scott. See the grids and lines and angles arrayed against the structures of the real world."<p>

I focused, recalling the geometry I had so hurriedly jammed into my brain in my past lessons. I had mastered the bookwork – now came the time to see if I was able to do what really mattered.

"I want you to hit this ball," Xavier said, nonchalantly bouncing a small rubber ball up and down against the floor. "But I want you to aim your beam behind you."

He threw the ball in the opposite direction. In the milliseconds before it even left Xavier's hand I had already calculated its projected trajectory. In the milliseconds after it left Xavier's hand, I determined its acceleration, angle, velocity vectors – no nuance was ignored. Then I turned my head to the wall behind me, obeying Xavier's instructions, all the while analyzing my position relative to the walls of the room, relative to the ball that was now out of my sight, relative to everything that existed in my current environment.

This shouldn't be too hard. Even though it was supposed to be impossible.

I fired, and when I fired, I fired precisely and specifically, with an explicit focus that resulted in an explicit magnitude of force and an explicit location of where my beam hit – down to the nanometers.

I listened for the satisfying pings that told me my blast was being reflected across every available surface in its jagged path towards its destination. I listened for the rewarding whoosh and thunk of a ball being hit and thrown at high velocity across the room.

And then the sound of slow clapping.

* * *

><p>For the first time in my life I learned what hard work meant. I learned what patience, dedication, perseverance meant for the body and mind, for the heart and soul.<p>

I began to appreciate the simple beauty of falling into a bed late at night, exhausted and drained, loving the gentle covers and pillows, even if the bed was a humble sleeping bag cradling nature's floor. I began to appreciate the wonder that came with waking before sunup.

I began to recognize the value of rest, and in those rare hours that I was given respite, I learned the value of solitude, or meditation. I learned the value of companionship.

In a sense, I grew more in that one short week than I had in all my fifteen years.

A growth that was needed if I was to survive in this new world.


	8. Chapter 8

"This is it."

We felt the weight of Xavier's words on our shoulders as we surveyed the maps he had given us.

"Dayton Medical Center. That's where the Sentinels are holed up."

"A hospital? Seems a little unlikely for a government military base." Jean echoed my skeptical thoughts. As much as I trusted Xavier's intelligence, it seemed a little too ironic that a team of mutant-killing robots would be holed up at a facility dedicated to saving lives.

"That was the information my very good colleague dug out of the Sentinel's brain. As unlikely as it seems, that is the location."

"They're just out in the open? Just like that, in a public building? Then why haven't I heard of them? The Sentinels aren't exactly great at concealing their presence."

"That's the first thought that came to my mind too, Jean. The obvious conclusion is that they're not located in the public area of the hospital – rather, they may be in a basement area or some other locked-up, secretive location.

But they are at this hospital, and that is where you must go."

"So, what, we just stroll in and claim we're looking for killer robots? I don't think we'd be especially welcome to just stroll around the hospital. Someone would inevitably get suspicious. And then we'd be dead."

Xavier smiled. "Ah, but here comes the masterstroke of my plan." He distributed photos in front of us. A school. A smiling teacher with her class. A list of names of students in that very class.

"These bright students are going on a field trip for their Health Science II class. I've arranged things with my contacts, and you two are going to be going along with them as transfer students. Under false names, of course."

"I hope they aren't too terrible."

"Scott, you will be Nathan Evans. Jean, Sydney Reilly. You will meet with the class outside of Liberty High School. A bus will take you to the hospital. Once there, you are to stick with the group to avoid drawing suspicion. At the right moment, you must deviate. Get into the Sentinel headquarters."

"And what are we supposed to do then?"

"Shut down the program. I don't know how difficult it will be to do that, but you must at least try. Delete permanently all the records they have of mutants. This virus should bypass any security systems they might have on their computers."

He handed me a flash drive.

"What if they don't have a USB port?"

"Use your imagination."

"You mean I should stick it into a Sentinel's a – "

"The field trip leaves in an hour. I suggest you make haste."

"Great," I grumbled as I stuffed the maps and other papers into my pockets. "You choose now to tell us that. I don't suppose you'd give us any directions, either."

Xavier smiled. "The information is all there in your mind."

* * *

><p>"I feel so uncomfortable." Jean tugged at her school uniform.<p>

"Hey. If we want to blend in we have to play the part." I was similarly dressed in a boys' uniform, though I have to admit it didn't feel too bad. It was nice to assume a new wardrobe, a new identity. It was nice to feel like I had a place in the world again.

"How long have we been waiting here?"

"Twenty minutes."

Jean cursed.

"You know how high schoolers are. You were one of them, once, a long time ago."

"And how uneager I am to join their crowd again."

"Are you saying high school wasn't a joy for you? I mean, come on – you were popular, you had all the guys – "

"Shh! They're coming!"

A line of orderly boys and girls streamed out of the front doors. A young, female adult – she couldn't be older than thirty – led the way. She broke into a grin when she spotted us.

"Ah, you must be Nathan and Sydney! Such a joy to have you two here, really. How is school going so far for you two?"

"Great," Jean smiled back, in a tone so sarcastic even I cringed at it.

"Yes, I'm sure you'll love it here. I'm Mrs. Davis, by the way. And our bus should be – ah, there it comes! Lines, students!"

_I really, really don't like it here,_ Jean told me.

_It's only for a couple of hours,_ I hissed back.

We filed onto the bus.

"Everyone usually has assigned seats," Mrs. Davis told us. "But for now, you two can sit wherever you like."

We took a seat together in the back.

The bus rumbled and roared to life. I sat back, remembering too acutely the unpleasantness of the bus rides of my old school.

"Hello." A brown-haired head popped up from the seat in front of us. "You're new, right?"

I nodded. "I'm Sc – I mean Nathan. This is Sydney."

"I'm perfectly able to introduce myself, thank you very much." If looks could kill, the entire bus would be decimated. Ha ha. If looks could kill. My looks could kill.

_That's not funny._

"She's a little irritable, isn't she?" piped up another voice. A freckled girl with shoulder-length blonde hair appeared next to the boy.

"She just needs some adjusting to," I replied. "After spending so much time in the wild, this girl finds it difficult to adjust to the sudden boorish ways of civilized life – "

An elbow in my ribs.

"So where are you guys from, anyways? I'm David, this is Sally," he added.

"Oh, you know, places," I said. "We're wanderers."

"What brought you to Liberty then? I mean, I know, we're a very special school, but – "

"The uniforms," Jean said flatly.

It was going to be a long bus ride.

* * *

><p>"This, class, is where they bring in students for outpatient surgery."<p>

Jean and I assumed positions at the back of the line. While I'm very sure we were both incredibly interested in what Mrs. Davis and the hospital tour guide had to say, if we had to break away from the group while drawing as little attention as possible, the back of the line was the place to be.

David and Sally, considering us their newfound friends, were right in front of us. They weren't going to make our mission any easier. Still, it was nice to have someone different to talk you when I had been stuck with the company of only two people for the last week. Two terribly interesting people, but only two people nonetheless.

"My aunt came in for outpatient surgery once. She had to have some kind of operation on her foot."

The problems and routines of ordinary people dulled my pain, made me forget that there was a bigger threat out there. I was happy, if only for a while.

The tour guide finished speaking. He led the way to the next section of the hospital.

"Hey Jean," I whispered. "See any suspicious-looking robots here?"

"You know what I think?" she hissed. "I think you're enjoying yourself a little too much."

"Nothing wrong with that," I grumbled, even as the tour guide began speaking about the wonders of the hospital pharmacy.

_I'm going to scan the minds of the people around me, _Jean said._ I'll let you know what I find._

Jean assumed an air of focus. I pretend to be suddenly interested in the tour guide's words.

He smiled, and motioned for us to move along. "We're going to go to the third floor now, to visit the intensive care unit. Come along with me to the elevators."

"Three groups, please," Mrs. Davis called. "We'll take turns going up the elevators."

"So," I asked Jean as we followed the group out of the pharmacy. "Find out anything?"

_Well, now I know every person in this group isn't as pure as they'd like to make themselves out to be. And Mrs. Davis has a rather nasty – _

_Jean._

_Alright, alright. No. No mention of the Sentinels, or mutants, for that matter._

We split into three groups. David and Sally were with us, along with three other students. We would be the last to go up.

One group went on the elevator. Then the other. We were left alone, or as alone as we could be when surrounded by hospital staff.

_And a bunch of obnoxious students._

I sighed. _Make yourself useful, Jean. Find out if these elevators go anywhere other than the regular hospital floors._

_Yes, sir._ she said with an unneeded air of mockery.

The number 2 flashed on the elevator display. It was coming back down to our floor.

_Anything?_

_Actually,_ Jean said, sounding genuinely surprised, _yes._

_Do enlighten me,_ I said as the elevator doors opened and we began to go inside.

Jean waited until everyone had gotten into the elevator except us, then quickly pulled me into a side elevator that was also open. She mashed the door close button like her life depended on it.

"Hey," I protested. "We're supposed to stick with the group. Are you trying to blow our cover?"

"Xavier said to deviate," she shot back. "We're deviating."

"But only if we found the Sentinels."

"We have found them. Just shut up and listen for a second."

I shut up and listened.

"I was reading the minds of the hospital employees. Apparently there's a section of the hospital that was recently built a couple of years ago. Underground."

I began to see what she was getting at.

"The staff had been told that it was a level for more patient rooms. However, once it was completed, no one was allowed to go into it. No one save for some select people."

"Certainly suspicious," I agreed, stroking my nonexistent beard.

"Some of the employees caught sight of these 'select people'. They match the description of the Sentinels. Tall, well-built, dressed in black and wearing shades. They've seen them going into the elevator but not reappearing on any regular floor. So, they must have been going underground."

"But couldn't anyone have used the elevator to go down to this top-secret underground facility?"

"No. They needed a special key."

"A key we don't have," I said, leaning against the wall of the elevator dejectedly. "So what, we add theft to our growing list of crimes?"

"Scott, when you get to know mutant powers a little bit better," Jean said with a sly smile, "you'll find that no lock stands in the way of a telekinetic."

"So you mean – "

"Yes," she said, as an audible click was heard and the elevator began to descend. "We're going right into the tiger's mouth."


End file.
